But that was fine. The sword was not his primary weapon anyway. And he switched to the staff instead about midway through the morning — a training staff, not the Brightstaff, to help avoid accidents — and then started giving back as good as he got.

  Properly speaking, no dweomerblade fought with a staff. There was a reason they were called dweomerblades, after all. Something about the metals and edges of their swords, daggers and polearms helped bring out and focus their magic.

  But then, properly speaking, Aefric was no more a dweomerblade than he was a wizard. And for him, the staff glowed, sparked and flared with power just as the sword had.

  Ser Beornric’s critiques were fewer during Aefric’s staff work, and consisted more of comments like, “faster is better there,” “drive the blade further out of line with that block,” and “tighten that spin more next time.”

  Aefric called the halt as the sun reached its zenith, and the audience — which had grown now to include more knights, more guards and soldiers, a good number of interested nobles, and such servants as could find excuses to remain nearby — broke into applause.

  Aefric dripped with sweat and panted for breath, leaning a bit on that staff now. He smelled of dirt and effort, and the sun was now baking his skin as he turned to shake his head in disbelief at the size of the watching crowd.

  Feeling the need to at least acknowledge them, he gave them a wave, and then joined Ser Beornric and his knights by the door to a supply room.

  Aefric felt gratified that his knights were sweating as well, and at least a few of them looked as though they’d noticed the effort of the morning’s training.

  “Better?” Ser Beornric asked, looking Aefric up and down as he accepted the training staff.

  Aefric reclaimed the Brightstaff, which had, of course, remained where he’d left it. His people knew better than to try to touch that weapon.

  “Much better,” he said with a grin.

  “Good way to clear the head,” Ser Beornric said with an appreciative nod.

  “Good way to lose it too,” a playful voice said, “if your grace were any slower with some of those parries.”

  Aefric turned to see Ser Deirdre in her deep maroon leathers. Her arms were folded across her chest, which left her hands conveniently close to the handles of her rapier and dueling dagger.

  She had her head cocked at a teasing angle, and a smile on her face and in her green eyes.

  Ser Beornric cleared his throat noisily.

  “Please excuse my unsought opinion, your grace,” Ser Deirdre said, still smiling with her eyes, and knelt to Aefric. In more formal tones she said, “I return from Ajenmoor having completed the task your grace entrusted to me. May I present Morgard Ol’Nara.”

  A man stepped forward who looked as though he was walking to his execution. His lightly tanned skin was pale, and the hint of sweat on his brow looked as though it had nothing to do with the heat.

  He didn’t tremble, but his eyes moved as though he were trying to spot either aid or a means of escape. But he was smart enough to keep his hands away from the hilt of his broadsword.

  Of course, the scabbard looked little tested, so he might never have used his blade in earnest.

  He dressed like a traveling merchant, in a tunic and breeches in deep shades of blue and green, both with multiple pockets. And he didn’t wear a token dagger at his belt, as nearly all Armyrian nobles did.

  But he had the same pale blonde hair as Leca, and the same fine-boned features. Aefric had little doubt that this was indeed Morgard Ol’Nara.

  Morgard glanced down at Ser Deirdre, kneeling on the dirt of the practice ground, and looked as though he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to kneel too.

  He settled for bowing very deeply.

  “Your grace,” he said, in a nervous voice, while a servant brought Aefric a water bowl and a towel to clean his hands and face. “I know not of what I stand accused—”

  He was smart enough to stop talking when Aefric raised a dripping hand. Aefric looked at Ser Deirdre.

  “What did you tell him?” he asked, while gesturing for her to stand.

  “I told him he was summoned to court,” she said as she stood. “When he … proved reluctant, I overcame his reluctance and assured him that the matter was not open to debate or question.”

  “And just how many strong was his ‘reluctance?’” Ser Beornric asked dryly.

  Ser Deirdre frowned as though trying to recall something inconsequential.

  “I believe there were four guards,” she said casually, then turn to Morgard. “It was four, was it not?”

  “It was six,” Morgard said, paling further. “And you killed them.”

  “Yes, well,” Ser Deirdre said, as though discussing the weather, “they drew on me first and they did have me outnumbered. Had I taken the time to merely disable them, you might’ve escaped. And then I would have had to track you down all over again.”

  She clucked her tongue at Morgard, then frowned in distaste.

  “Six? Really? I would have sworn I hardly needed enough effort to dispatch four. If there truly were six, you must hire a better class of guard next time.”

  Several of Aefric’s knights had to turn away to hide their smiles.

  Aefric considered all this while he dried his face. As he did, all around his group, knights and soldiers and guards filled the training ground with the clash of activity.

  Aefric’s stomach rumbled a reminder that he hadn’t eaten yet today. But that could wait while he satisfied his curiosity.

  “Ser Deirdre,” he said, “how, exactly, did you approach him?”

  “Well, your grace,” she answered, clearly enjoying the chance to tell the story. “It took me longer than I’d intended to track the man down in the first place. And when I finally did, it was closing in on midnight, in a warehouse near the docks.”

  She gave Morgard a look, as though inviting him to contradict her. But Morgard looked out over the training ground at six soldiers who were drilling with pikes.

  “He was clearly there to see to the completion of a business deal,” Ser Deirdre said. “So I gave them time to conclude, but that time seemed to stretch and stretch and stretch, your grace. As though they hadn’t worked the details out in advance, as proper business usually requires, but intended to see to the final details while they were transferring cargo.”

  A deal closing at about midnight? With final details only just being worked out? Aefric found himself quite curious about that cargo. But decided that question could wait for later, while Ser Deirdre continued.

  “Well,” she said. “At length I decided I’d waited long enough. After all, this was no idle curiosity of my own that brought me there, but a mission from your grace. Which I must, in good conscience, execute with all available speed.”

  At the word “execute,” Morgard paled further still. At this rate he’d faint before she finished talking.

  “So I stepped out into the light, announced myself, and informed all present that his grace, Ser Aefric Brightstaff, Duke of Deepwater, had sent me to collect Morgard Ol’Nara and bring him to Water’s End at once.”

  “Arrest,” Morgard mumbled just loud enough to be heard over the clashing and crashing and shouts of training.

  “Pardon?” Ser Deirdre asked.

  “You said you’d been sent to arrest me,” Morgard said in a stronger voice. “Not collect me.”

  “That’s not quite right,” Ser Deirdre said with a shake of her head. “I said I came to collect you. You asked if I’d come to arrest you. And what did I say to that?”

  Morgard sighed and said, “‘If needs be.’ Which is tantamount to the same thing.”

  “Not in the least,” she said, then turned back to Aefric. “At that point, his reluctance required a pointed rebuttal on my part. Once that argument was concluded, I began escorting him here to your grace’s presence at best speed.”

  She bowed.

  “Excellent work, Ser Deirdre,” Aefric said, which made her smile. To Morgard he said, “I summoned you to court for a reason, and I’ll speak to you about that reason later today.”

  Aefric gestured for a couple of guards to come over.

  “This is Morgard Ol’Nara. Take him to my seneschal, then see to it he is given rooms, fed and the like.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Morgard asked.

  Ser Beornric cleared his throat.

  “…your grace?” Morgard finished, wincing, as though the oversight hadn’t been intentional.

  “At the moment,” Aefric said, “you are my guest. Anything else will have to wait.”

  As the guards escorted Morgard away, Aefric shook his head, and hoped he wasn’t arresting Morgard after all.

  Aefric took his lunch on the balcony of the public floor of his apartments. The sun was almost directly overhead, but it was just off enough that one of the large, round, greenwood tables could be positioned in the shadows of the Great Spires.

  Between the shade and the gentle breeze, the temperature was quite pleasant. Though Aefric itched from sweat, and had had to accept a frown from Ocheda that he hadn’t gone to clean up and change properly after such exertions.

  But food had to come first.

  And with that food, a meeting that might prove to be important.

  Lunch was a thick, savory beef stew, served with fresh corn and tara, and honeyed oat bread slathered in butter. To drink, a crisp, light, day beer that made Aefric think of the pale ales he’d known a world away.

  They had those pale ales here as well, but they called them “day beers.”

  Joining Aefric for this lunch were Sers Beornric, Yrsa, Calder and Deirdre, along with Kentigern. Though Kentigern had already eaten, so he only nibbled on the bread, to go with his beer.

  Aefric, ravenous, dove into his lunch and seconds, while Ser Deirdre addressed the question Aefric hadn’t wanted to ask down on the practice grounds.

  “What was in the cargo Morgard had been transferring that night?”

  “Well, to be honest, your grace,” Ser Deirdre said. “I didn’t have a whole lot of time to check into it. The manifest said the crates were full of textiles. Mostly cotton and flax. And the few crates I’d gotten to see, well, that’s what they’d contained.”

  She shook her head through a sip of beer. “Have to say, though. Didn’t look like much. Not great quality. And certainly nothing anyone would need in such a hurry that they’d have to load a ship in the middle of the night, while still working out the details.”

  “What if it was a replacement cargo?” Kentigern asked, drawing knowing looks from around the table.

  “That would make some sense,” Ser Deirdre said. “If whatever they were expecting didn’t show up, and they had to do something last minute.”

  “Where was the shipment going?” Ser Yrsa asked.

  “Wulfport,” Ser Deirdre said, then shook her head. “Don’t read too much into that though, your grace. Nothing short of a war will stop the normal sorts of trade, and nothing’s more normal than textiles.”

  “Wait,” Aefric said. “Cheap cottons and flax, you said?”

  “That’s right, your grace,” Ser Deirdre said, nodding, while the others looked curiously at Aefric.

  “Undyed?” Aefric asked.

  “I believe they’re usually shipped undyed,” Ser Deirdre said, suspiciously, “but these were as well.”

  “Did you get a name for delivery?”

  “I didn’t give the matter that much attention, your grace,” Ser Deirdre said. “My focus was on Morgard. The rest was only part of understanding what I was walking into.”

  “What did it look like to you?” Ser Yrsa asked.

  “Looked to me like something shady,” Ser Deirdre said, shrugging one shoulder. “But anytime Brangford Couglas is involved, I assume shady anyway.”

  “Was Couglas there?” Ser Beornric asked.

  “Was when I made my entrance. Wasn’t by the time I’d overcome Morgard’s reluctance.”

  “What do you think?” Ser Beornric asked Aefric.

  “Can’t be certain, of course,” Aefric said. “But it occurs to me that the refugees we’d saved from those slavers had been clothed on the cheap.”

  “Hardly a strong connection,” Ser Calder said. “Lots of people need cheap textiles. And that includes people in Wulfport.”

  “I’m not saying it’s a reason to make arrests,” Aefric said. “I’m saying it’s a point of information to add to what we know.”

  “With respect, your grace, I disagree,” Ser Calder said. “It’s speculation. If we start adding speculations to hard knowledge, we don’t refine our information. We dilute it.”

  “Too late now to track that ship,” Ser Yrsa muttered.

  “And with Master Morgard’s … extraction,” Kentigern said, “safe to say they won’t use the same ship next time. That is, if they are up to something shady.”

  “Oh, it was definitely shady,” Ser Deirdre said. “The formation. The guards. The general stress level. They were involved in something clandestine and illegal, that much is certain. I’d been assuming they had contraband hidden in the textiles, but your grace thinks the goal might’ve been shipping the textiles themselves?”

  “His grace speculates that,” Ser Calder said. “Hidden contraband is certainly a lot more likely.”

  “We could put the question to Morgard,” Ser Beornric said, watching Aefric as he said it.

  “I intend to ask,” Aefric said. “And I hate to say it, but I need to know for certain what kind of business he’s been up to before I confirm his lands for him.”

  “That’s right, he’s a ler,” Ser Deirdre muttered, then nodded. “Explains a few things.”

  “What does it explain?”

  “Well,” Ser Deirdre said, “I recall that your grace told me there might be a plot to steal his lands. Discrediting’s as good a way to do that as murder.”

  “True,” Ser Yrsa said. “And an easier way to look innocent in the process.”

  “The way he’d asked if he was arrested,” Ser Deirdre said. “Almost as though he’d been told that someone from the duke might try to arrest him. And the guards. He didn’t order them to attack. That was Couglas. Maybe as much to cover his own escape as to protect Morgard.”

  “Did Couglas recognize you?” Aefric asked.

  “Can’t imagine he wouldn’t,” Ser Deirdre said. “Especially the way I leapt up onto those crates in full view of everyone and announced myself. But I never actually laid eyes on him. Just recognized his voice when he yelled ‘Get her!’ before the guards attacked.”

  “What exactly did you say?” Aefric asked. “When you jumped up onto the crates.”

  “I was in the moment, your grace,” Ser Deirdre said with a lopsided smile. “But I believe it was, ‘Morgard Ol’Nara. By the authority of his grace, Ser Aefric Brightstaff, Duke of Deepwater and Hero of Frozen Ridge, I, Ser Deirdre Ol’Miri, Knight of Deepwater and Slayer of the Ogre of Threepeaks, am come to collect you and escort you to his grace’s presence at Water’s End.’”

  “Pity you’ve no flair for the dramatic,” Ser Calder grumbled.

  “And that was when Couglas yelled, ‘Get her?’” Kentigern asked.

  “No,” Ser Deirdre said. “First there was a moment of stunned silence as they took in the majesty of my presence. Then Morgard asked if I was arresting him. It was after I said, ‘If needs be,’ that Couglas yelled, ‘Get her!’ and the argument ensued.”

  “All right,” Aefric said, sitting back and pondering through another savory spoonful of stew. “We know that Mayor Brangton was in touch with his son by rika while we were in Lachedran.”

  “Do you think he suspected Leca would mention her brother to you?” Ser Beornric asked.

  Ser Yrsa scoffed. “Wouldn’t put it past him to have suggested it, to make sure. While having his son set up Morgard, to ensure he looked guilty when you sent someone to collect him.”

  “Why would he assume I’d send someone to collect him?”

  Sers Beornric and Yrsa glanced at each other.

  “Your grace…” Ser Beornric started, but it was Ser Yrsa who finished.

  “There’s no doubting that Mayor Brangton knew his wife would share her problems with you while she was sharing … other things. Given your reputation for good works, of course you’d want to confirm her brother in his lands at the first opportunity. Which would mean sending someone to Ajenmoor as soon as you got back to Water’s End.”

  Ser Yrsa nodded at Ser Deirdre.

  “So you’re saying I’m too predictable for my own good?” Aefric asked.

  “No,” Ser Yrsa said. “I’m saying that we can count on people trying to turn your known tendencies to their own ends.”

  “Then the plan failed,” Kentigern said. And when everyone turned their attention to him, he continued. “Yes, it looks bad. But we don’t know of any crime, or even any contraband. Hardly enough to lose a ler his lands.”

  “They knew we’d have to question him,” Ser Calder said. “Which may lead to finding out about crimes.” He shook his head. “Could be they just needed us in a suspicious mood when we took him, so we’d think to ask about what he might be guilty of.”

  Ser Calder cocked his head at Aefric. “Assuming it matters?”

  “Of course it matters,” Aefric said. “Why wouldn’t it?”

  “You’re the one who slept with his sister, your grace,” Ser Calder said, which brought immediate objections from Sers Beornric and Yrsa, as well as Kentigern.

  Ser Deirdre, meanwhile, looked quite interested in all of it.

  Aefric knocked on the table until he had their attention.

  “The noble privilege is the noble privilege,” Aefric said, “and that’s all it is. I’m not going to start bending the law for a woman, just because she came to me for the bliss moment.”

  “Well,” Ser Deirdre said with a playful smile. “That might depend on the number and quality of bliss moments she gave your grace. Just how good was this Leca Ol’Nara?”